


Signs

by MurderBaby



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Destiny, Family, Fate, Gen, Spoilers for the entire game within
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-12
Updated: 2017-04-16
Packaged: 2018-10-18 02:34:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10607514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MurderBaby/pseuds/MurderBaby
Summary: Regis, King of Lucis CXIII saw the signs. Taught long ago how to look past the simple shapes drawn in the imagination of ancient people, Regis could see the signs written in the stars. In the long undead light of their astral corpses. Bursts of light illuminating truth in the darkest corners of his kingdom. Of his people's fate. Of his destiny.King Regis saw the signs.





	1. Before

Regis, King of Lucis CXIII saw the signs. Taught long ago how to look past the simple shapes drawn in the imagination of ancient people, Regis could see the signs written in the stars. In the long undead light of their astral corpses. Bursts of light illuminating truth in the darkest corners of his kingdom. Of his people's fate. Of his destiny.

King Regis saw the signs.

When a small baby boy was born to King Regis, one hundred and thirteenth of his line, and his beloved queen Aulea, the kingdom overflowed with joy. Businesses closed, and happy citizens flooded the streets to celebrate the birth of their new prince. Bright blue eyes, set in a small, serious face. Dark black hair, thick and full, made the prince look stately and serene, not a bawling, red faced cherub.

When King Regis held his son in his arms, he saw the signs.

"Your worrying does you no good. It does your son even less good," said Aulea, shining with the sweat of her day filled with remarkable hard work. She took his breath away as the twilight shafts of light softly touched her skin. Her labor hand been sudden, weeks before her due date. That, too, was a sign.

"I am the king of Lucis, and husband to the mother of our kingdom's prince. When all I am able to do is worry, then worrying is exactly what I shall do," King Regis replied. He'd meant his words to chastise, but instead the warmth of his tone soothed the infant in his arms. Noctis Lucis Caelum, the newborn prince of Lucis, who had not stopped crying from the moment he'd entered this world, but who yawned, and slept peacefully in his father's arms.

Aulea saw the look on her husband's, and king's, face, and fell easily to sleep herself.

Days later, Aulea died from complications related to the birth.

King Regis took the wailing child from the nurse's arms. The nurse stood sobbing, next to the attending physician who'd been given the extraordinary, even dangerous, task of delivering the news to her king.

King Regis said nothing to them. He looked at the soft face, bright blue eyes, and healthy complexion of his son. When they left the grieving father and son alone, King Regis assured himself, and his son.

"This is not a sign."

But, King Regis had lied.

Years passed. A peace built on the backs of sacrifice and tragic compromise stood shaky, but upright it still stood. King Regis had not the time to spend with his young son he would desperately have wanted, but he justified the decision without much regret.

Duty kept the kingdom safe. The throne secure. It meant the prince would inherit a kingdom filled with peace and prosperity, rather than tilted, eroded stone.

There would be time enough soon. King Regis told himself that, and he told his son that.

"I will have time for you soon, Noctis," promised the king to the small boy holding the cuff of his jacket, fighting back tears. It was not a lie, but it may as well have been.

After all, King Regis saw the signs.

On the eve of the young prince's fifth birthday, barely a sliver of moonlight could be found in the sky. It left the palace feeling darker and emptier than King Regis had ever known it to feel, even in the days after his father died, or his wife.

The prince cried out in his sleep, and by some stroke of luck, the King had been awake and standing nearby. He stepped inside, expecting to see his son sitting up in bed, alone and calling out for him.

Instead, as King Regis stepped into his son's bedroom, the crying stopped. All sound stopped. Everything stopped. Curtains fluttering in the breeze froze into impossibly still shapes. The ceiling fan's quiet murmurs disappeared.

Unblinking blue eyes faced the King with eerie clarity. They did not see him, but King Regis stood as if he were indecent and humiliated. Standing next to the prince, turned away from the king, someone moved.

"The fifth year of the prince of light approaches. The shape of what things are to come should be clear by now, King of Lucis."

"Glacian..." muttered King Regis. Without thinking, he slipped into the Old tongue, borrowing from the traces of wisdom sleeping in his blood weakened, but not absent, after many, many generations. "...I have given you all my life, my time, my honor."

The woman's long black hair slid back from her shoulders as she turned, waves of moonlit ebony and silken black dress fabric looking in the silver starlight like gray clouds in a frozen sky.

"And more of you, we must yet ask," she replied with a gentler tone. It was not unkind, but her kind face held stern, neither inviting nor welcoming rebuke. The silence stretched on in this unmoving break in time.

"Then, my wife?" King Regis said, fearing his voice would break as he said it. The woman looked at him. King Regis saw her eyes were closed, yet she still considered him with something not unlike kindness, and pity. She clasped her hands together in an unusual, alien pose across her chest, elbows pointed out as if she were a figured carved into a temple wall by the ancient people of Lucis.

"Humans are so fragile," she said. She looked at Prince Noctis, and so did King Regis. He could not keep his composure securely in place as rage slipped out of the cracks.

"He's only a boy!"

Despite the volume and the anger, the woman did not react. Instead, she recited words King Regis could have written with his eyes closed.

"O'er rotted Soil, under blighted sky, A dread Plague the Wicked hath wrought. In the Light of the Gods, Sword-Sworn at his Side 'Gainst the Dark the King's Battle is fought. From the Heavens high, to the Blessed below, Shines the Beam of a Peace long besought. "Long live thy Line, and this Stone divine, For the Night when All comes to Naught." "

King Regis shook his head, as if he were the age of his son, enraged by the injustice of being powerless and at the mercy of his caretaker's whims. He looked at the boy, sitting as still as a painting on the bed before him. Noctis was a sweet boy, with a gentle heart. Soon, the boy would learn the art of combat, of war, of heartless, brutal politics, and even that was too cruel a fate.

King Regis had listened to his beautiful son share fantastical stories about the wondrous adventures the boy could imagine. About his nights filled with giants and towering waves and mountains born in an instant that swept through his otherwise innocent dreams.

"There is nothing to question, your majesty. For it lives in him now. In his blood."

The Glacian reached one hand towards Noctis's head. King Regis nearly bellowed in anger, but her hand only brushed aside a lock of hair, nothing more.

"The answer lays with your blood. From those who too have known the weight of destiny, and who, too, have died in service of its duty."

King Regis said nothing. He walked to the opposite side of the bed, and offered no farewell as a blast of shivering cold accompanied the visitor's departure.

Time began its painful march again. King Regis's son blinked his eyes. His mouth opened and closed in dreamy confusion.

"Daddy?"

"Yes, Noct, my son, I'm right here."

Noctis, Prince of Lucis, said nothing as he began to softly cry. He pressed his face into his father's chest. He hugged his father close, unable to explain exactly what had just happened to him. He could only manage a few choking words.

"Don't leave me!"

The King pulled his son into his arms, and rocked him like he was still an infant.

"I will always be with you, Noctis. Even when you're all grown, and going on to do amazing things, I will be by your side. I promise."


	2. Acceptable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The ring his father wore burned with cold. Once, his father slipped the ring off, and placed it in Regis's tiny hand. It weighed enough that his hand dipped. His father gently laughed, and asked Regis what he thought.
> 
> "It's too heavy."
> 
> King Mors placed the ring back on his own finger.
> 
> "I agree, son."

He'd always found the ring to be so cold. One of the first memories King Regis Lucis Caelum, one hundred and thirteenth of his line, had ever formed was of his hand, impossibly small, resting in the large and steady grip of his father's hand. He ran small fingers along the metal ring, and despite the warmth of his father's hand, the ring nearly burned with cold.

Chances were that King Regis had invented his father's response, years and years later, as his memories shifted and changed in his private recollections. The response, though, burned him nearly as precisely as the touch of the ring.

"There will be time enough for you to bear this burden, young prince. For now, your father will carry it, just like he carries you."

King Regis, later, would insist on being known as Reggie by the crownguard. He would insist on rotating the watch at night, and sleeping on the same hard ground as his allies. He'd insist that he was the heir to the throne, but first and foremost, he was their friend and comrade. Cid would laugh in his face, and Cor looked like he wasn't sure whether he was being tricked. Weskham nodded with his sincere, good nature, happy to oblige. Clarus resisted, but eventually, muttered out the name.

King Regis, Reggie, had not yet ascended to his throne, and been crowned King. He saw himself as a servant to the crown, like any other, tasked with doing his part to bring peace to the kingdom.

Their mission failed. King Mors pulled back the Wall, and left the remaining troops of Leide, Duscae, and Cleigne as naked and defenseless as newborns.

Reggie had never been blessed with the gift of prophecy, as some kings and queens are, but when the blurred edges of his dreams firmed into coherent clarity, he paid rapt attention. It had saved his comrades during their travels, alerting them from the midst of a moonless night of special forces waiting in the shadows of the trees.

The night before the Wall's retreat, Reggie heard his father's voice. "Acceptable causalities," said firmly, and unshakably. "Acceptable."

Reggie's heartbeat scored the scene before him. Lines of men and women running away. Retreating from artillery and aerial bombardment as the barrier preventing the might of Niflheim from swarming the countryside faded. The slaughter made Reggie violently, physically ill, even in this unreal space between consciousness and sleep.

A loud, drowning cry of disapproval, disappointment, and disagreement startled Reggie's companions as he stumbled to his feet, last to wake the morning of the retreat.

"It's over. We head back immediately," Clarus explained. Weskham did not meet his gaze, Cor shuffled uneasily on the balls of his feet, and Cid's shoulders shook in anger.

"What the fuck kind of king leaves his troops to die just to keep his precious city a little shinier?" Cid spouted, as they walked out of the room. Clarus whipped his head around, and Cor placed a placating hand on Cid's shoulder. Weskham reached for Reggie, tension as thick as mud between the men.

Reggie looked at Cid. The men all looked at him, even Cid, lip quivering as the anticipation in him grew and morphed from prideful rage to fear.

"Fuck the king," Reggie said. Even Cid's stomach dropped at the tone in his prince's voice.

Later, when Regis, prince of Lucis, returned to Insomnia, he could not look his father in the eyes during their short, tense reunion. King Mors said nothing, as they were surrounded by Crownsguard and attendants. Later, though, across the distant sea of smoothly polished table, food sat cooling as both of them pushed food around their plate.

"Something is on your mind, Regis."

Regis, the heir to the throne of Lucis, thirteenth of his line, said nothing. As good as an admission, and King Mors set his fork down. He steepled his hands.

"I understand your disappointment, Regis," King Mors said evenly, the gravel tenor of his voice the result of an ancient injury while training in the art of the Armiger. "You and your comrades worked hard to attempt to secure an alliance, and at the end your efforts were largely for naught."

Good silver clattered against antique porcelain. The foot steps and shuffling of servants legs and shoes as they moved around the dining room ceased.

"I'm not disappointed because of my mission, father," Regis said loudly, with a crisp and clear voice. A king-in-training's voice. A precocious and untested instrument.

"What could be the source of your disappointment, son?"

Regis balled his hands into two fists. He set them on the table. His knuckles turned bent pallid white with his strain. The solid would barely made a sound as his flesh knocked against it when he slammed one hand down.

"All of those people. All of those troops. They were all left behind to be slaughtered by the Empire's forces. And you don't..."

Regis dared then to look across the table at his father. King Mors grey eyes burned cold like the ring shining in the candlelight.

"You would do well to make your next choice of words very, very carefully, Crown Prince Regis of Lucis."

Silence filled the room until Regis gently lifted and placed his napkin on the table. He excused himself quietly. Foot steps echoed through the hall, every servant and guard standing by to see how the King would react this time to his son's impetuousness.

"My apologies," King Mors said. To whom, it was not clear. He, too, stood without eating another bite, and left the room.

It was a certain narrow, curving set of stairs near the back of the Citadel. It led to nowhere but rarely utilized office space, but the floor to ceiling windows adorning the walls behind it afforded possibly the most spectacular views in the entire city.

Regis sat stooped on one of the lower steps, knees pulled in tight under his chin. Regis's bearing of nobility and ease with his status had been apparent since childhood, but his stubborn and rash nature clashed with the patience needed to rule. The ability to see a forest, not simply its tallest trees. King Mors sighed, and then cleared his throat, but Regis continued to ignore him.

"Regis?" King Mors started. Nothing. "I do believe you were trying to tell me something, and you did not finish, just as you did not finish your food."

Leaving dinner unfinished was unacceptable. King Mors insisted that nothing be wasted, as a nourished and healthy royal family was the first and most crucial duties in a litany of duties to perform. Regis looked up, reflexively guilty, abashed, and stubbornly resistant, all in one scowling glance.

"I..." Regis started. King Mors stepped towards the railing. He had not brought his cane, and Regis took care not to stare as the King scrambled to grip the rail.

King Mors did not look at his son, either. The King blinked at the sinking sun throwing shafts of golden and red light through the towering silhouettes of Insomnia.

"Insomnia is a truly beautiful city," King Mors said, interrupting. "There are livelier cities, better food, more spectacular cities, but Insomnia will always have my heart."

"Father, I..."

"I do care, Regis."

The prince looked up, and the king looked down.

"I know, father," Regis said, turning his head. He flushed with some confusing mixture of feelings. King Mors sighed deeply. His tone softened, and Regis's head whipped back to look at him.

"I did not make this decision lightly, and I did not do it simply to preserve Insomnia, or my seat, or this throne."

Regis did not expect this answer. There was no shame, not truly, in doing any of that. Regis was stubborn, reckless, young and idealistic, but he was a prince and he knew the cost of a crown.

"I do not do any of this because of what happens today, Regis. Or even what happens in the comings years, or decades."

With a sweep of his arm, King Mors asked his son to follow him. Regis did.

They made a familiar circuit of the Citadel. Regis offered his strong, young arm as the King's support while they walked together. The rooms that were their private residence. The board rooms and offices of central command. King Mors explained some of what he needed to balance. What some of the factors that played into his decision were.

"I dreamt something," Regis offered, as they stood at the entrance to the throne room. The Citadel shone like a lighthouse as night fell fully over the city, just as Insomnia stood as a beacon against the darkness for the entire continent. King Mors stopped, and nodded. He, too, understood the importance of dreams.

"You said that the losses at the front were acceptable," Regis said. His voice dropped into a plea, almost petulant. "That the causalities were 'acceptable.'"

King Mors did nothing with undo haste. He spoke with precision, and stepped with care. His silence in this moment said so much. He opened the door, and walked with his son into the inner sanctum of the Citadel. Poised carefully in its place of honor, reverence, and cutting edge security precautions sat the Crystal.

All who entered the throne room fell under the spell of the Crystal. Not proper magic, not truly, but something deeper than a thought, and purer than light flowed from the object above the throne. The heart of the Citadel, and the source from which Lucian royalty derived all of their power, all of their legitimacy, and all of their wisdom.

All who entered the throne room fell under its spell, but only the Kings of Lucis could hear its cry.

It did not always speak loudly. It did not always use words. But the Crystal always spoke to them.

_Acceptable. Acceptable. Acceptable._

The words Regis heard his father say were not his own. They were his father's echo.

"I had to. In that moment, I was acting not as the ruler of Lucis, but as the King."

Regis did not understand at first, until the Crystal spoke louder, and more clearly.

_He performed Our works. He did the necessary thing. The throne must be preserved. The line must hold true. The losses are acceptable. Nothing else matters. Nothing._

One of them gasped in shock and dismay, the other sighed, a ragged and slow sound.

"Acceptable?" Regis then asked.

King Mors repeated the word, with none of the certainty of his dream form.

"Acceptable."

The Crystal looked almost unimpressive, especially in the low light of the throne room at night. A large, egg shaped boulder with rough, unsightly scars. However, at night, otherworldly light shone from within. The Crystal was not born of the heat and pressure under the crust of Eos. It was not mined from the earth, carved away from some mountain's innards.

It had been gifted to them from the Gods.

It had been a gift to his line. It had kept the nation of Lucis safe for hundreds of years. Niflheim, and others, may have made crude attempts, barreling against the might of its defenses, but a barrier stood unbroken. A city stood bright against the darkness.

King Mors lifted his hand to his forehead, automatically. The ring there sparkled, even in the low light. The Ring of the Lucii tied the King to the Crystal. Without the Ring, the King was nothing but a man. Without the Crystal, Insomnia was not a kingdom.

"Acceptable?" Regis asked. King Mors looked at his son. He looked at his hand resting on his son's arm. He frowned. Before them, the light of the Crystal turned sickly purple, and bright. As if in response to Regis's question, the room filled with ear splitting noise. The King nearly toppled to the floor as his hands flew to cover his ears, and Regis threw his arms around his father's narrow waist as the sound gripped his mind and shook it senseless.

The floor shattered like glass. Regis fell, losing his grip on the King. The room fell away, and Regis fell not further into the Citadel, but into a void. Into nothing.

Heavy, sinking weight pulled at Regis's bones. Loneliness unlike anything the prince had ever experienced pressed against every inch of his skin, pouring into his mouth and throat. Alone, Regis saw nothing for a very long time.

And then, Regis saw everything.

\----

Sometime later, Regis, then still known by his comrades as Reggie, sat with his companions for one last night before the group dispersed with the start of the coming peace.

"Did you ever tell that fuck of a father of yours what you really thought?" Cid asked, three drinks deep, and decorum long since left at the door of their overpriced Insomnia hotel room. Even Cor just laughed at the brash, almost violent words. Reggie did not laugh, though. He turned quiet. He looked for a long time at the brown liquid in his glass. Cid got impatient, and grumbled some more expletives before Reggie spoke again.

"Some loss is acceptable."

"Bullshit!" Cid shouted, before the entire sentence left Reggie's mouth. Reggie set the glass down, and liquid spilled over the sides with the force of it.

"Your King serves the crown and the Crystal, and must make sacrifices for the greater good," Reggie said, teeth grinding together so forcefully as he spat the words out his jaw ached. These were not his words, not really, and Cid knew it.

"So, what kind of acceptable losses are we gonna expect from you, Regis?" Cid replied, corrosive words sinking into Reggie's flesh, carving Cid's use of the name "Regis" into his skin like a brand. Reggie did not reply. He stood from the table, and dropped the cost of the hotel room, liquor, tips, and some extra in large wads on the table, before stomping away. Clarus would follow him back to the Citadel, exchanging whispered words with someone on the phone that Reggie was fine, nothing to worry about, just go to bed.

When Reggie returned to his own bed chamber, Clarus asked after him gently.

"Reggie?"

Regis, Prince of Lucis, looked at his friend and comrade. He frowned, and looked at the floor between them.

"Please, call me Regis."

\----

What losses would King Regis accept? His own father died far too young, and infirm beyond reason. His father, who had taught Regis how to read, how to read the stars, and how to read the ancient texts, also taught Regis, in his waning years, how to read the future.

"I also lack the skill of prophecy, Regis. But, I know that darkness awaits. You've seen the signs, as well." Most of what he'd taught Regis involved understanding the motives of his enemies, and the temptations of his allies.

It involved turning inward, trusting his own judgment before trusting another's, not because others did not know better, but because the burden for the decision must be a King's alone.

More than once, Regis questioned his father. Sometimes, he would yell, or storm away in anger. Acceptable losses were deaths of brothers, mothers, sons, and daughters. Refugees would pour into the city, only to be turned away due to perceived risks to the crown.

"There is more you have yet to learn, my son, about the duties of the crown. About the purpose of this ring."

Later, King Regis would learn that stories he'd trusted as simply that, stories, were not just a fantasy meant to fill a child's wild imagination. Later, as his father bent lower and lower under the burden of the ring, King Regis would be taught the details of the prophecy. A King of Kings. A Herald of the Gods. A final, desperate gasp of hope for his people.

"It is not just a story," King Mors whispered, as Regis knelt by his bed. In less than 24 hours, the King would be dead, and long live King Regis Lucis Caelum CXIII. Regis would be violently ill moments before the coronation, bent over a toilet in his chambers, Clarus nervously standing outside the door, sick with the thought that his friend was suffering, and as head of his Kingsglaive there was nothing he could do. But, now, Regis sat young, healthy and furious at his father who, too, had been young and healthy, but was now gray, weathered, and old long before his time.

"The King of Light will save us all. He will cleanse our star. And, above all else, more than anything else we do, we must make way for him. We must keep the Crystal safe. We must preserve the line," King Mors explained, and then the words were too much. He coughed out a broken, empty, failing sound. Regis held his hand tight, and reached for water, but the King shook his head. He continued to speak, whispering and wheezing out each word.

"Each human life is precious, but we must accept loss, Regis."

The King's hand released its grip on his son's hand. Regis shook his head, and did not hide his tears or anger any longer.

"It's never acceptable. I can't accept this," Regis growled. King Mors, serious and precise until the last, smiled and let out a gasping laugh.

"You will have to take it up with the Six, my son, if you wish to change it."

"I will," Regis said. He was not joking, despite his father's reaction. "I will face them all, personally, and I will have words with each of our ancestors, too, while I'm at it."

King Mors, the one hundred and twelfth of his line, continued to smile.

"You will be a fine King, Regis. Finer than I ever was."

King Mors, proud and smiling, attended to by his son, died shortly thereafter.

\----

The ring his father wore burned with cold. Once, his father slipped the ring off, and placed it in Regis's tiny hand. It weighed enough that his hand dipped. His father gently laughed, and asked Regis what he thought.

"It's too heavy."

King Mors placed the ring back on his own finger.

"I agree, son."

Now, Regis had grown accustomed to the cold, and to the weight. To the exhilaration as the cold steel, and power, of his weapons materialized from nothing. To the tilting, shifting disruption of his equilibrium as ghostly apparitions of the weapons of 12 ancestral kings floated before him as if hung delicately by invisible wires held by astral puppet masters.

Regis even grew accustomed to the black char crawling up his arm, over his neck, when he made use of the ring's immense power. Soon, he barely felt it, and eventually, it appeared not at all.

Regis never grew accustomed to the ache in his bones. A stretching of the marrow, like growing pains. A strain on his lungs like never quite catching his breath. With the very magic that ground his strength into dust, Regis could hold himself nearly upright. He could sit and stand for the hours needed to attend to his court. He could march up and down the stairs of the Citadel.

Regis never grew accustomed to the absence of his father. A tall, stern, serious man, who maintained a small garden on his balcony, and studied the birds of Insomnia, noting their locations with an old, neatly bound notepad. 

Regis awaited the same accepted fate as his father: a death before his time, crippled and broken by the weight of his duty. 

Having managed to rock his child back to sleep, the King of Lucis knew that he could accept this. The Gods asked his ancestors for their bodies, their strength, their lives, and their unnatural deaths. The Gods asked of him his duty, his health, his freedom, and his self-respect. 

The Gods could not ask him for his son.

King Regis closed the door to his son's room quietly behind himself. As he strode through the dark hallways of the Citadel towards the throne room, and the Crystal, for just a moment, the ring on his finger burned hot like fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This actually needs another chapter. And, gosh, I have so many ideas to explore that working on this story inspired that I might need a whole series. I can't believe the Boy Band Road Trip Simulator 2016 is doing this to me, but that's Final Fantasy for you. 
> 
> Please feel free to reach out to me on tumblr! [murderxbaby.tumblr.com](https://murderxbaby.tumblr.com/).
> 
> ETA: as per a lovely piece of feedback from LucreciaLeVrai in the comments on this chapter, apparently the real name of Reggie's dad might be Morus, not Mors? I cannot find any official confirmation online for one or the other, and based on my knowledge of Japanese, elementary as it might be, either would probably be fine? So, if someone has an official source for me, I'd love to read about it...

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, hello! Final Fantasy XV somehow, inexplicably, became my favorite game of all time! How about that? So, now I'm plunging myself into the icy cold waters of a new fandom. Enjoy?
> 
> I have a tumblr, but it's mostly a multifandom mishmash: [murderxbaby.tumblr.com](https://murderxbaby.tumblr.com/)


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